Slashdot Mirror

darthcamaro writes "The folks at internetnews.com are reporting that the Spam Assassin project has been promoted to a full top level Apache Software Foundation project..the project has been in incubation for a while and it's finally made it through...the article also reveals that Apache is now using Spam Assassin themselves: 'I think spam filtering is now a critical part of the network infrastructure and Spam Assassin is a leader in the area,' said Daniel Quinlan, chairman of the Apache Spam Assassin Project Management Committee."

Tarantolato writes "The Eclipse Foundation has released version 3.0 of its open-source Java-based IDE. Eclipse backers like IBM say the program offers not only increased productivity and ease of use, but also a plugin-based architecture for creating 'rich client' applications with the networking capabilities of web-based apps and the persistence and native widgets of desktop applications. The Lotus Workplace platform is already Eclipse-based. Some in the Java community, however, are concerned with Eclipse's use of SWT rather than the standard Swing widget set, and some analysts think that project is part of a 'broader challenge to Microsoft's entire .Net development framework' from IBM. Meanwhile, Eclipse executives are attempting to woo Microsoft into joining the foundation."

zam4ever writes "Sean Michael Kerner has written an article on how FreeBSD has become a Stealth-Growth Open Source Project with various reasons outlined for FreeBSD's growth over the last years."

gwoodrow writes "In some of my college computer classes, we discussed the necessity of some sort of profit to be made eventually from major software. AIM was often sited as a rare example of a large company offering up a free service that generated almost no profit whatsoever. Well, that's all changing. It seems that AOL will begin charging for both voice and video conferencing services via the buddy list. Some AIM addicts are surely getting worried that AOL may eventually charge for regular usage."

A little birdy writes "Less than a month after Beta 1 was released, Mono Beta 2 has been released. See the Release Notes, or go directly to the download page. It includes a C# compiler, an implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure and two stacks of APIs: a Unix, Linux, GNOME, Mono stack for APIs that takes the most advantage of your Unix server and desktop and a set of APIs compatible with the Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 that provides support for ASP.NET (web services and web forms), ADO.NET and many other components." And in a related story: darthcamaro writes "The drive to develop a FOSS implementation of Microsoft's .NET framework by DotGNU and Novell's Mono project is being painted as a contest between the Free and Open Source communities in an article on internetnews.com. The article details the running argument between DotGNU's Norbert Bollow and Mono's Miguel de Icaza on the issues of commercial involvement, software patents and all the 'religious' stuff that the Free software community holds against the open source community."

Glenn Fleishman writes "According to InternetNews.com, a tech consultant discovered that even if you turn the remote administration feature off on a Linksys WRT54G -- the single bestselling Wi-Fi device in the world -- you can still remotely access it through ports 80 and 443. Linksys sets the HTTP username to nothing and password to 'admin' on all of its devices by default. Web site scanning from anywhere in the world to devices that have routable Internet-facing addresses would allow script kiddie remote access, at which point you could flash the unit with new firmware, extract the WEP or WPA key, or just mess up someone's configuration and change the password."

darthcamaro writes "According to an article running on Internetnews.com today, Mozilla and Opera have teamed up on a web standards proposal for Web Forms 2.0 to be presented at a W3C working group this week. One of the proposal's authors is quoted in the article as saying '... that if a backwards-compatible open-standards alternative isn't created first, then 10 years from now the de facto Web application standard will be Microsoft's Avalon and the .NET framework.'
Are Opera and Mozilla the new 'rebel alliance' in the fight against the Microsoft Empire? Should we call this chapter 'A New Hope'?"

Chroniton writes "According to InternetNews.com: 'HP stepped up its commitment to open source software Monday by pledging to offer and support the MySQL database server and JBoss application server software in its servers' - it's also mentioned: 'The deal is truly symbiotic. While MySQL and JBoss get backing from a technology driver such as HP, HP gets the added credibility of being cozy with open source, a label many enterprises and HP rivals, such as IBM and Dell, are working toward.'"

nycsubway writes "Microsoft is planning to add in its own encryption and decryption to its newest version of SQL Server. From the article: 'The company is writing complex encryption and decryption functionality directly into the product so customers don't have to procure security features from a third party, or roll their own when the product becomes generally available next year.' I would also hope the default sa/password will no longer be there."

prostoalex writes "Microsoft's WTL (Windows Template Library) toolkit source code has been released to SourceForge.net [also part of OSDN, like Slashdot.] InternetNews explains that the toolkit allows a Windows developer to create quick GUIs in C++. According to the project page, WTL extends ATL (Active Template Library) and provides a set of classes for controls, dialogs, frame windows, GDI objects, and more. WTL is licensed under CPL, which is the license Microsoft chose for the SourceForge release of the WiX installer."

News for nerds writes "According to the internetnews.com report, Microsoft's technology evangelist Robert Scoble said in his blog and interview that while he is a user of Firefox it can be improved if Mozilla developers take advantage of Longhorn technologies such as XAML, Avalon and WinFS, instead of making it only within GNOME/Mozilla coalition."

ChaserPnk writes "Gentoo has been in the news recently. First with the news that Daniel Robbins leaving Gentoo and then with Gentoo Linux 2004.1 being recently released. Have you ever wondered how Gentoo got started? An article at IBM DeveloperWorks explains how. Get to know the history of Gentoo." darthcamaro wrote in with a related story that suggests that Gentoo is preparing to change directions soon: "Is Gentoo gearing up to be the third major enterprise distro? That's what an article running on internetnews.com points to. They talked to the head of Gentoo's enterprise efforts. For those that think that Gentoo Enterprise is far off, Gentoo's guy figures if they had the cash they'd be up and running in 6 months."

ChaserPnk writes "Gentoo has been in the news recently. First with the news that Daniel Robbins leaving Gentoo and then with Gentoo Linux 2004.1 being recently released. Have you ever wondered how Gentoo got started? An article at IBM DeveloperWorks explains how. Get to know the history of Gentoo." darthcamaro wrote in with a related story that suggests that Gentoo is preparing to change directions soon: "Is Gentoo gearing up to be the third major enterprise distro? That's what an article running on internetnews.com points to. They talked to the head of Gentoo's enterprise efforts. For those that think that Gentoo Enterprise is far off, Gentoo's guy figures if they had the cash they'd be up and running in 6 months."

darthcamaro writes "Time for net admins to update BIND: version 9.3 has been released. internetnews.com has a story on it where they talk with Paul Vixie, the founder of BIND's keeper ISC. In it he details why after so many years BIND has finally decided to offer commercial support. 'Many of the companies who use our software free of charge have told us that their corporate risk management strategy requires them to have a bona fide support channel for all of their critical operations,' Vixie said. 'In other words we were told that having the best software wasn't good enough, and giving it away for free wasn't good enough, we also had to ensure that commercial support was available or they could be forced to switch to software they didn't like as well just to get support.' The full press release on the BIND 9.3 release is also available."

darthcamaro writes "Time for net admins to update BIND: version 9.3 has been released. internetnews.com has a story on it where they talk with Paul Vixie, the founder of BIND's keeper ISC. In it he details why after so many years BIND has finally decided to offer commercial support. 'Many of the companies who use our software free of charge have told us that their corporate risk management strategy requires them to have a bona fide support channel for all of their critical operations,' Vixie said. 'In other words we were told that having the best software wasn't good enough, and giving it away for free wasn't good enough, we also had to ensure that commercial support was available or they could be forced to switch to software they didn't like as well just to get support.' The full press release on the BIND 9.3 release is also available."

darthcamaro writes "Looks like we don't need to speculate on what Linus' opinion is on backporting. Internetnews.com is running a story this morning that includes Linus' comments on the issue which was a /. topic yesterday. When asked by e-mail to comment for internetnews.com, Torvalds wrote: 'I think it makes sense from a company standpoint to basically "cherry-pick" stuff from the development version that they feel is important to their customers. And in that sense I think the back-porting is actually a very good thing.'"

darthcamaro writes "We all assume that the kernel is the kernel that is maintained by kernel.org and that Linux won't fork the way UNIX did..right? There's a great story at internetnews.com about the SuSe CTO taking issue with Red Hat backporting features of the 2.6 Kernel into its own version of the 2.4 kernel. "I think it's a mistake, I think it's a big mistake," he said. "It's a big mistake because of one reason, this work is not going to be supported by the open source community because it's not interesting anymore because everyone else is working on 2.6." My read on this is a thinly veiled attack on Red Hat for 'forking' the kernel. The article also give a bit of background on SuSe's recent decision to GPL their setup tool YAST, which they hope other distros will adopt too."

lawrencekhoo writes "MySQL AB announced yesterday that software for building a MySQL Cluster will be available for download by the end of April. Articles available from Computerworld, Internetnews, Linux Electrons, and PHP Architect. Great! Now my website can finally have 99.99% availability ..."

rocketjam writes "According to InternetNews.com, Apple Computer is seeing large numbers of UNIX, Java and Open Source developers moving to its Mac OS X platform. Apple Vice President of Worldwide Developer Relations Ron Okamoto mentions that, in the three years since the introduction of OS X, 'people who have experience in those areas are showing a great interest in our OS. We're seeing a lot of first timers. It's really impressive.' The company said it has recently surpassed the 300,000 member threshold of registered developers. Apparently, the increase in enterprise code writers has prompted Apple to add more sessions focusing on enterprise and IT to its upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference."

We have some assorted Red Hat stories which can be - and in fact already have been - jumbled together for your reading pleasure, like a sort of literary succotash. Forbes has an accusatory piece about Red Hat's licensing model, which is apparently, err, Microsoft-esque. Red Hat reminds everyone that RH9 is not going to be officially supported for much longer. Internetnews.com has a brief interview with Red Hat's CEO.

DotNM writes "Internet News reports that ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is beginning a crackdown on invalid data in the WHOIS database. In ICANN's annual report, they found that nearly 5000 of the 24148 complaints were due to inaccurate WHOIS information. Some of the domain names in question had the address information of known spammers in the database. Registrars, the companies you register your domains with, are under contractual obligations to ensure this information is correct and accurate. Do you believe this is a step in the right direction? Why?"

The Original Yama writes "Ars Technica takes a look inside the GNOME 2.6 Desktop & Developer Platform, due for release any minute now. It builds upon an earlier review of the GNOME 2.5 development series and their own examination of GNOME 2.4." darthcamaro writes "internetnews.com is running a story about the release of GNOME 2.6 today. They actually got a hold of Miguel de Icaza who had some real interesting stuff to say about it and the Linux Desktop in general. 'de Icaza told internetnews.com that a simpler interface has been the goal of GNOME since at least version 2.0.'" Update: 03/31 21:59 GMT by T : sn0wman3030 was one of many submitters to link to the GNOME 2.6 start page, including links to screenshots, documentation, and source downloads.

Some Bitch writes "IBM has filed for declaratory judgement in the SCO case. They want the court to declare that "IBM does not infringe, induce the infringement of or contribute to the infringement of any SCO copyright through its Linux activities, including its use, reproduction and improvement of Linux, and that some or all of SCO's purported copyrights in Unix are invalid and unenforceable.". If the judge grants the motion then SCO effectively has no case and the whole thing is over." spafbnerf notes that "SCO has filed a motion for the patent infringement claim to be split into a separate case." fr0z adds a link to Groklaw's always-excellent coverage.

WildCode writes "SCO is now targeting Aussies in its continuing Linux licence saga. According to the story, one Aussie organization has already signed up for the licence. The ACCC has no comment at this time but this certainly puts a twist on things as the ACCC were waiting for the results of the lawsuits in the U.S. before making any judgement. Personally I think its time for the ACCC to say to SCO 'wait for the U.S outcomes before taking action here.'" An anonymous reader points to another story at internetnews.com.

darthcamaro writes "internetnews.com is running a story about the new Apache 2.0.49 release. They actually got a hold of a pair of Apache Software Foundation members and got them to speak out about the 1.3.x vs. 2.0.49 debate! Also Apache Director Sander Striker told internetnews.com that he expects the Apache 1.3.30 release cycle to begin this week... I still use 1.3.x because I've been using the Apache 1.x series 'forever' and I've never found a solid reason to change. Also, as pointed out in this article, the official PHP documentation clearly states, 'Do not use Apache 2.0 and PHP in a production environment neither on Unix nor on Windows.'"

rjray writes with news that yesterday "the W3C gave their official stamp of approval-- Technical Recommendation status-- to VoiceXML 2.0. Trade publications covering this include internetnews.com. The move also recognizes the Speech Recognition Grammar Specification (SRGS 1.0), and combines the two together under the heading of 'Speech Interface Framework.'" Here's the W3C press release.

darthcamaro writes "Looks like our federal tax dollars are hard at work - improving security on Linux! The NSA - you know the folks that are shadowy figures on X-files - have released the latest updates to SELinux (security enhanced). Internetnews.com has got a piece on it where they talk to Gentoo and Red Hat about the release's significance."

Ethereal writes "InternetNews.com reports that Microsoft has begun beta-testing a built-in virus scanner for its Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) that will be included in the final product in mid-2004. The tool is among the operating system enhancements the Redmond, Wash., company is developing as part of its Security Center initiative to rebuff viruses, worms, trojans and crackers. Microsoft will also provide free online training to help developers make the most of SP2's security features, Chairman Bill Gates said at today's RSA Security conference. It's the first time the company has offered training with a Windows service pack release."

prostoalex writes "Earthlink dedicated $500,000 to delivering broadband connections over power lines by launching a test drive of the technology with Progress Energy in North Carolina. 500 homes involved in the projects can sign up for promotional pricing of $20/month, which after 3 months will be changed to $50/month. No word on bandwidth provided, but Ambient Corp., which provides technology for the project and accpeted EarthLink investment, claims data rates exceeding 10 Mpbs."

darthcamaro writes "What's the fastest growing Linux distro? This really solid article on InternetNews.com contains interviews with the Debian Project leader, the founder of Mandrake, SuSe, Red Hat and TurboLinux to get their take on who's the biggest and who's the baddest on the distro block. Also includes some interesting insight into the next round of releases."

gsfprez writes "Well, i'm no patent lawyer, but if I'm reading this right, it seems that the basics of XML are being patented by Microsoft. If not the files themselves - at least what most of us would do with XML files. From the abstract: 'Systems, methods and data structures for encompassing scripts written in one or more scripting languages in a single file.' That smacks of what my config files do on my G5 for my G5, if you read it with a biased eye." We noted this was happening earlier, and now it's finally come to pass. While the patent does sound a bit dubious, a Microsoft spokesman was quick to deny that they'd be so bold as to patent XML itself.

Combuchan writes "This article from internetnews.com caught my attention: While Linux lawsuits gobble up the IT community's mindshare, a lesser-known legal action is being fought seeking billions of dollars from five PC vendors. Patriot Scientific, a small, San Diego-based seller of embedded microprocessors for automotive and scientific applications, is suing Sony, Fujitu, Matsushita, Toshiba, and NEC, alleging infringement of a Patriot patent for what it calls 'fundamental microprocessor technology.'"

Combuchan writes "This article from internetnews.com caught my attention: While Linux lawsuits gobble up the IT community's mindshare, a lesser-known legal action is being fought seeking billions of dollars from five PC vendors. Patriot Scientific, a small, San Diego-based seller of embedded microprocessors for automotive and scientific applications, is suing Sony, Fujitu, Matsushita, Toshiba, and NEC, alleging infringement of a Patriot patent for what it calls 'fundamental microprocessor technology.'"

colinmc151 writes "Both Groklaw and Internet News are reporting on the visit made to Harvard University by Darl McBride, SCO president and CEO, and Chris Sontag SCO senior vice president. Darl and Chris made a presentation titled 'Defending Intellectual Property Rights in a Digital Age'. One protester gave out copies of Linux to all that attended. Bottom line SCO plans to carry on with the lawsuits. Best line was one student who when Darl asked if he was impacted by MyDoom.A e-mail virus answered 'No, I use Linux'." One MIT student has a write-up of the event as well...

thisissilly writes "Ready for another set of restrictions to so-called 'intellectual property'? The House Judiciary committee approved a bill to extend copyright-like protection to databases, despite opposition by AT&T, Amazon, Yahoo, and Google, among others. Currently mere compilations of facts, such as phone books, are not copyrightable. This would change that. Coverage from Cnet, Internetnews. No word on a Senate version. Let's stop this one before it grows."

rocketjam writes "The RIAA has a new plan to fight P2P file trading since an appeals court ruled that Internet service providers don't have to turn over the names of suspected music pirates to them. The RIAA has now proposed, in a letter to the 50 largest ISPs in the US, that they supply the identifying IP address of suspected music traders to their ISP after which the ISP would send a notice to the user informing them they are suspected of illegal trading but not yet targeted for a lawsuit by the music industry. Internetnews.com reports that according to industry sources they've contacted, not one ISP has agreed to cooperate with the music industry's new plan. ISPs have been cautious in their public responsed to the RIAA proposal, although they all agree they are under no legal obligation to comply with any RIAA request."

ClickTheVote writes "Last fall Senator Norm Coleman held hearings on the RIAA subpoena process, now he is going to convene a P2P Summit. At CES last week he said, 'With the advent of technology such as peer-to-peer networking, law, technology and ethics are now not in synch. We need to find other ways to solve the problems rather than issuing lawsuits and lobbying Congress to pass tougher laws.' Here, here."

Thanks to Gamesindustry.biz for its article discussing Marvel's renewed focus on videogames based on their properties, with the announcement of "a new division [that] will oversee the creation of all games based on Marvel licenses", ensuring quality control. These products will still be licensed out to external developers/publishers, however, and the announcement press release lists previous and future titles, including Spider-Man II, X-Men Legends, Fantastic Four, and Iron Man from Activision, The Punisher from THQ, and The Hulk II from Vivendi. The GI.biz article also notes: "One of the most exciting products in the pipeline for the company... [is another] Vivendi title - a massively multiplayer game featuring a wide range of different elements from the 'Marvel Universe', which encompasses the entire spectrum of the company's franchises" - this MMO title will doubtless be compared to Cryptic/NCSoft's unlicensed, currently Beta-testing City Of Heroes. What as yet unused Marvel property do you think would make the best videogame?

bluephile writes "CNN is running an article on the The Transport Security Administration's (TSA) renewed efforts to implement the CAPPS II color-coded passenger risk-assessment program, despite outcries by numerous privacy activism groups at the program's collection and redistribution of personal information. The TSA has made several claims that the system respects passengers' privacy, but their track record isn't impressive. Congress suspended the program last year in order to investigate its privacy implications. One MIT paper suggests that CAPPS II could make flying MORE dangerous, rather than less."

An anonymous reader submits "AOL's suit against several Florida-based spammers has been dismissed by a federal judge in Virginia. The judge said the case was tossed because AOL failed to show that Virginia had jurisdiction over the case Apparently being HQ'd in VA and spamming VA residents isn't enough to sue the bastards in Virginia. AOL plans to appeal."

knighten writes "Sun Microsystems has taken the last of its Cobalt line of server appliances off the shelves in favor of the AMD based Sun Fire line." The article makes note of several relevant bits of history regarding Cobalt, the Appliance Server market, and Sun's Linux strategies.

prostoalex writes "InternetNews.com describes the reaction to Microsoft's decision on FAT licensing. It doesn't look like the company is expecting to make any significant money out of licenses (there's also a cap of $250K, so none of the big guys will have to pay millions to Microsoft). It also doesn't look like Linux companies are stressed over this decision. "We are only accessing FAT32 file systems, not using them. This licensing program is of little interest to SuSE", a Novell/SuSE spokesperson said."

daddywonka writes "According to this article at internetnews.com, an upcoming survey from the Robert Frances Group shows that 'cost-savings and the General Public License, or GPL, are trumping any concerns about SCO Group's claim of copyright infringement within parts of Linux.' The survey only covers 15 companies. That doesn't seem very reassuring to me. Do any slashdotters have experience with their companies pulling the plug on Linux projects due to the SCO trial or is it business as usual?"

giampy writes "Joel Spolsky writes a review-like article on the last book of Eric S. Raymond (The Art of Unix Programming). His views on the cultural differences among Windows and Unix programmers are well explained. Overall, an interesting read." Also on the topic of Windows, badriram writes "Microsoft is reorganizing the windows team, it seems the are separating the OS core development. Seems like things heading in the right direction in creating a more secure OS, and making it more business oriented. Read the article here."

prostoalex writes "In December of 2002 only 12% of US music downloaders owned a digital music player, while for this year the number has increased to 17%. Jupiter Research expects the sales of the digital music players to double this year, while another research agency notes a remarkable shift towards paying for music. Even the music industry tends to agree that online music stores are a boon and expects the Web sales to really take off in 2004." (And the sales of Ogg-capable hardware are up, too, since there finally is some.)

cmj writes "Internet.com reports 'Looking to attract households that still aren't online, AOL is offering new customers a $299 PC system if they sign a one-year $23.90 dial-up Internet service contract.' A click through AOL's ecommerce site reveals the the specs as 1.7 GHz Celeron with 256 MB RAM, 40 GB hard drive, 56K modem, 10/100ethernet card, 17" monitor and Lexmark printer. The PC is running Windows XP, and includes 'AOL Office Powered by Sun'. Also of note is the fact that the $299 appears to be financed at around 22%. The math ( (12*23.90)+299 ) seems to suggest that you can get a $699 computer for $585.80 plus any finance charges. Setting aside the question of whether this is a good deal or not, one has to wonder whether AOL is desperate for new customers and resorting to bribery, or just progressing to the next step of branding. With this action AOL controls everything from the OS to the Word Processor to the web sites their customers browse."

prostoalex writes "Open Source Development Labs announced a new initiative to increase customer confidence in using Linux in business. The initiative is launched in answer to legal claims by SCO Group. So far managers and developers around the world are supposed to boost their confidence in Linux with the help of this little poster, which explains the kernel development process."

Ridgelift writes "Microsoft has settled with the state of Tennessee to the tune of $64 million dollars. This comes on the heels of more settlements with North and South Dakota, and will likely be similar to the settlement with North Carolina in issuing vouchers. Hopefully there will be more websites to help customers receive their refunds, or help donate their vouchers to help the Free Software Foundation."

Futurepower(R) asks: "Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows XP have crippled file systems. The file system cannot copy some of the files that are necessary to the operating system. If you don't have experience with Microsoft operating systems, you may find this amazing, but it is true; Microsoft supplies no method of backing up and restoring fully operational copies of Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Microsoft's advice is to reinstall the operating system and all programs every time you want to move to a new or backup computer. For confirmation of this, see the 'Microsoft Policy Statement' in the article, The Microsoft Policy Concerning Disk Duplication of Windows XP Installations. Many industries use numerous programs; installing them all may take a week or even more. All of the disk image duplication programs I've used have problems, in my experience. What program do you use? What has been your experience with it? Can you recommend a program, or recommend staying away from one?"

"This policy of providing no way to backup and restore a fully installed system is impossible for corporations, of course. So Microsoft technical support representatives recommend sector-by-sector disk image duplication, even though it is against Microsoft policy. Copying each sector of a hard drive bypasses Microsoft's copy protection by which Microsoft punishes all users, even if they are honest.

Sometimes Microsoft technical support recommends using 'third-party' disk image programs. For example, sometimes support representatives recommend using Symantec Ghost.

All of the disk image duplication programs I've used have problems, in my experience. So, here's a question: What program do you use? What has been your experience with it? Can you recommend a program, or recommend staying away from one?

Here are my experiences:

Symantec Ghost sometimes fails with non-specific error messages. Uninstalling Ghost does not uninstall all the Ghost software. Symantec is one of the companies using copy protection, so using Symantec products may be a case of jumping from the Microsoft frying pan to the Symantec copy protection fire; also, you have no assurance that the copy protection will not become worse in the future.

PowerQuest DriveImage and DeployCenter have an uncertain future. PowerQuest was bought by Symantec. This was after PowerQuest released DriveImage 7 with problems. The sale cannot be a happy event for those who spent hundreds of dollars on DeployCenter.

I've tried Acronis True Image. I've had better luck with it than with Symantec or PowerQuest products. However, like the others, it sometime gives non-specific error messages that say something like, 'I've failed, and I'm not going to tell you how to troubleshoot the problem.'

Fred Langa, publisher of LangaList, recommends BootIt. I have no experience with it.

I haven't tried g4u, free, open source software provided under the BSD license g4u has the drawback that it writes only through FTP. There is no way to write to a network drive or a CD-R.

It's disgusting; people just want to make functional backups, but to do it they are dragged over the coals."

SunSaw writes "Erin Joyce reports on internetnews.com that "Top developers at Microsoft are working on a new graphics and animation toolset for Longhorn (the next generation of Windows) that could spell trouble for Macromedia's popular Flash MX and Director MX animation tools". Flash's yet-to-be-released competition from M$ is code named "Sparkle" but it wasn't demonstrated during Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles last week. Is this the beginning of the end for Macromedia?"